27 days to get over the love of your life
by theyellowumbrella
Summary: 27 days in the life of luke danes and lorelai gilmore


**This started as a whole other story completely and then I ended up having to remove the first paragraph which I quite liked so it turned into a day-by-day log of June from the 3rd. Sort of AU, sort of not. I have the other paragraph stored somewhere, though, so don't fret. You probably wouldn't. (Also, in the last story I posted I had Luke call her 'Lor' twice and holy shit, if I had been writing in any sane state of mind, I would never of done that. It was 5 am, I was crying and I couldn't think of another nickname and having him say Lorelai felt weird at that moment). This is sort of a mess and if you felt rushed towards the end it's because I took a weird turn and tried to fix it within like, three days. Enjoy, I guess.**

When June 3rd rolls around, Rory refuses to leave in case her mother drowns in the growing piles of tear-stained tissues that surround every inch of the house. She does leave for about an hour when Lorelai's all cried out and is napping on the couch and goes to the diner to check up on Luke, because despite the fact that he didn't respond to her ultimatum and it was his stupid kid that fucked it all up (Lorelai's words, even though she stated afterwards that it was her fault for giving him the fucking ultimatum and that she should of been happy just to see him all sleepy in the morning when they woke up together, side by side), his wedding was cancelled too and she knows that Luke still loves her mom and always will, no matter what.

He's doing okay, he says, even though it hurts like hell whenever he sees the date on the calendar, or whenever Babette or Miss Patty looks at him all sympathetic, and whenever he stops to think about what he gave up and how pretty Lorelai is and that her daughter being there, the girl that was meant to be his stepdaughter, the girl that was his kid before his real kid ever was isn't helping much either. But he looks like he's really getting on alright, better than her mom, at least.

June 4th, she goes to the diner. Lorelai Gilmore turns up at the diner and actually sits there and drinks her coffee and eats her burger and fries and they make small talk. Sort of. She gives him a box of his things that she feels no longer belong under her bed (translation: she gives him a box of his things that she can't stand being under her bed because it's poking out and so she sees it whenever she's not on the bed) and he gives her her loud scarf that always gives him a headache but he sleeps with wrapped around his arm most nights.

"Your favourite scarf. You left it at my apartment the night before we broke up," he tells her as he reluctantly hands it over.

"Thanks, Rory's been meaning to borrow it," she says with a tight-lipped smile. He's wearing the black cap again.

"Really?" he asks with a sort of real smile, amused at his ex. "Rory wants to borrow _this _scarf? Lorelai, I clearly remember her turning your offers down to lend her it."

"Well, that's just jealousy because she didn't buy the scarf when I offered to pay for it."

"She's going crazy, I guess," he says with a fond smile.

"Well, we've known that for a while now. Okay, I have to go. Bye." As she's going out the door, she turns around and says, "Hey, I like your hat."

He doesn't wear the hat again. He wears a green cap that Rory bought him for his birthday.

June 5th is an okay day. It's okay in the sense that neither of them kill themselves or anyone around them, because that's about as okay as it's going to get. It's okay because nobody gives them any sympathetic looks or pats on the backs and so they almost are able to pretend that it isn't happening, even though it is and her calendar is mocking her a lot with the two days past _Not my wedding _she marked on after Lane and Zach's wedding.

June 6th sucks. It just sucks a whole lot for no actual reason, it justs sucks.

June 7th is what Luke thinks could be a turning point, but ends up just sucking even more than June 6th.

June 8th, Lorelai makes a list of all the reasons she should be grateful that the relationship is over:

Luke has a kid. A thirteen-year-old kid. That age is always the worst for raising kids, and she doesn't want to be that wicked stepmom that everyone hates.

He can get crazy jealous. Like, _crazy _jealous.

And that's all she can think of.

June 9th is fine, and that's it.

June 10th is the best day since June 4th because they talk again and she comments on his green cap and the meeting doesn't make either of them want to claw their eyes out. They make small talk and then April comes in and Lorelai clears out after that because she can't look the kid in the eye without bursting into tears.

On June 11th, Rory comes home again for three days and she spends a day and a half with Lorelai, who's coping alright, actually, and she looks after Paul Anka and takes him on three walks and catches up with Babette and Miss Patty and talks to Jess over the phone when he calls to say hi because they do that, sometimes.

June 12th, she spends another day and a half with Luke, who's falling apart. She even takes over the diner for a couple of hours while he cries/drinks himself into a stupor in the storage room, and he really appreciates it when she doesn't say a thing.

June 13th, she's invited to the wedding of one of her old high school bullies, because despite the fact that she's Lorelai Gilmore and so you wouldn't think she'd get bullied, she did. Kinda. She gets a plus one and on the card, the girl writes _Hope you can bring your fiance! Oh, wait. I forgot, you don't have a fiance because you threw it all away. Better luck next time! _She cries herself to sleep.

June 14th, Liz comes in with Doula and dumps her on Luke, and the more he starts to look at her, the more Doula's muddy brown eyes begin to look like Lorelai's bright blue ones, and he starts to see hints of brown in her blonde tufts. He imagines all day that this is his and Lorelai's baby and that she's at work, but they're going home to each other and they'll both talk to Rory for like, an hour on the phone until Paris will start yelling about the phone bill and she'll have to hang up, and then when they try and sleep, the baby will keep them up and then Paul Anka will feel left out and will start whining, and they'll end up staying up all night and he'll fall asleep when he's serving people and Ceaser will take over and they'll end up sleeping all day until the baby wakes them up, but they'll have their solid three hours and each other to keep themselves going.

By two, he's convinced himself he's lost his mind.

June 15th, Lorelai takes a trip down to the park beside Stars Hollow middle school when everyone's supposed to be in class, but instead, it's recess. She sits cross-legged on the ground where everyone can see her, and they all watch as she writes "_I'm sorry_" over and over again in the dirt.

June 16th, he's done with the whole fucking world.

June 17th, April asks him why they broke up. And he tells her why. And Luke's never seen a thirteen-year-old look so deflated when he tells her that it was her fault.

June 18th, he's cleaning out his closet and he finds her flannel and the blue baseball cap that she bought him and he's back to square one.

June 19th is actually a not bad day for Lorelai. It's a busy day at the inn and so she has something to distract her from all of the Luke feelings swirling around in her brain and the fact that they haven't spoken in nine days.

June 20th is the day that they have their big reunion. Well, sort of. They don't get back together, but they talk about things after they bump into each other at Doose's Market.

"I'm sorry, and I miss you," she says, and he says it back, and there's a moment when they almost kiss or something but it ends up being for nothing when Taylor forbids them from getting back together and they don't protest from tiredness.

June 21st. So many things wrong with that day. First of all, his coffee machine breaks. Second of all, Davey hits her in the stomach and yells "I hate you!" and for some reason, it hurts more than whenever Rory did it. And now, here he is, staring at a picture of them on his mantelpiece because he's too chicken to throw it away.

June 22nd comes around far too late for his liking. He sleeps through most of it because his pillows no longer smell of her and each breath tastes more and more of non-Lorelai related things.

June 23rd is the day of April's middle school graduation, and so he puts on a nice sweater and combs his hair and pretends his world isn't crumbling.

June 24th, Rory calls twice in one day. She's never been so grateful to get away from TV and Chinese food.

June 25th, she orders a huge breakfast from him and stays for four cups of coffee. The spark in her eyes is beginning to come back, Morey tells Babette.

June 26th is the day that he stops and asks himself what he's doing, and why he's so upset because she's his friend, and all she can think is that Rory was right. Rory was so, so right because they are losing Luke.

June 27th, he listens to one of Jess's old CDs that he forgot to pack, and God, if you tell anyone, he'll kill you, but it isn't as bad as he once thought they would of been, considering their God awful t-shirts.

June 28th is not the day that they get back together like they both silently hope it will be, but June 28th is the day that they attend the town festival together and it's all very nice and civilised.

June 29th is the day that she turns up to the wedding of her high school bully without a plus one and she doesn't give a damn, and because of that, nobody says a thing about how her smile isn't as big as it was and how her laugh sounds a little more forced.

June 30th is the day that they're both finally okay.


End file.
